Lower carb eating - your top tips please

hillyhilly

Dh has been advised to reduce carbs. It has been quite enlightening to look at this info but does anyone have some top tips to share please?
He loves carbs presently, has cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and meat with carb and veg for dinner.
We need it not to feel faddy as it needs to be long term so we are just wanting to know what are good carb choices rather than how to eliminate them Atkins style.

chicky89

whole grains vs white bread for sure.

I try to stay away from the pastas and rice, and limit myself them once a week, and try to eat healthier carbs.

I also eliminate carbs from one meal, usually my dinner. For example, I will have a chicken salad, or lean steak with veggies.

oouurr__aayylleeyycan

Hey.

I'm not a low-carber personally, but since eating healthier I've made conscious decisions to try and avoid "bad carb" options and replace with "good carbs". These include:

Whole grains like barley, bulgur, buckwheat, quinoa, and oats
Whole-wheat and other whole-grain breads
Brown rice
Whole-wheat pasta
Fruits and vegetables
Beans, lentils, and dried peas
Whole-grain cereals like 100 percent bran

There's a ton of others that you can get, and if you google good carbs - v - bad carbs, I'm sure it'd give you some good results but they're just a few I buy.

Also, there's a good recipe website called www.skinnytaste.com that has a whole section for low carb diets for you to get ideas from.... Enjoy!

aSunflower

I like south beach. It really worked to get rid of those sugar cravings. The first two weeks are the hardest- you basically cut all sugar out of your diet including fruit. Then you slowly add the good carbs back in. I now have my own plan that does include some sugars but is still mostly south beach. I realized I needed a plan I could live a lifetime with and not a diet.

TheDrBuchanan

Things I recommend:

-Make wraps instead of sandwiches. If you can find Chi-Chis wheat wraps, they are very tasty and higher in fiber than regular flour tortillas.
-If he needs a sandwich, use a high fiber wheat bread. I like Schwebel's selects brand. Look for at least 3g fiber per slice.
-Substitute mashed cauliflower for mashed potatoes. A little runnier, but just as tasty.
-Substitute another vegetable for the carb side at dinner time. Maybe one that's a little higher in sugars for now to ease the transition, such as broiled tomatoes.
-Dreamfields is a brand of pasta that has only 5 net carbs, and it tastes just like regular.
-Substitute gluten-free or whole wheat flour for white flour when possible.

If you need a source of great recipes, I highly suggest the South Beach Diet cookbooks - the 30min, and superquick ones. Even though SBD is seen as a fad diet, the recipes in these books are incredibly delicious and fast to prepare, even for someone not following the diet. They also include all nutritional information, and are labeled as to the carb content.

Good luck!

Srdking

Check out these sites they will help you,

Low carb snacks, http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/a/snacks.htm
Low carb Low Carb Food Pyramid, http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/ig/Low-Carb-Food-Pyramid/

This has the low carb fruits and veggie list among other lists, http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/What_Foods_To_Eat_on_a_Low_Carb_Diet.htm

amyf1973

Is the goal to reduce sugar drastically? Perhaps he can start by eating whole grains, legumes, and limit starchy veggies (corn, potato) to only a few times a week instead of eliminating carbs completely from his diet.

4my2jays

Eat your carbs earlier in the day before 2pm - 3pm so it has time to burn off during the day. Also limit them. I am doing the 17Day Diet and it has really made me concious about my carb habits and to embrace the fact that yes I need them but in moderation. So I eat my carbs and fruit early in the day, so by evening they have burned off and if not then exercise will do the rest. Plus by doing that I dont have to fall asleep storing them in my body.

csingleton24

We do meatless mondays once a week for dinner and now I am thinking of adding another day or two. I love the skinnytaste.com website as well. I go to the bookstore and find recipe books that are vegetarian or low carb. I am a cooker/baker though so I love to experiment and create dishes. I know some people just aren't like that or don't have the time, but if you take the time or do it with family, it makes it fun and more of a family experience that you can all share together. Good luck on your journey!

Christy

lisaabenjamin

I have switched to porridge for breakfast instead of cereal - I know that porridge still contains a lot of carbohydrate, but it keeps me fuller for much longer so I'm not tempted to snack on carb-rich foods throughout the morning. If you want to eliminate carbs for breakfast, why not try fruit salad with low-fat greek yoghurt, or fruit smoothies?

I agree it's hard to find good substitutes for the humble sandwich at lunchtime since they are just so easy to make and readily available to buy! I rarely eat sandwiches now however, and instead have ben eating a lot of homemade soups, salads and omelettes, and try to finish off with a piece of fruit or a fat-free yoghurt instead of crisps or biscuits. You could also try tinned fish like sardines or tuna - you can get lots of different flavours so that not every lunchtime is the same.

Before my bf and I started MFP, we would eat carb-rich evening meals quite often, for example shepherd's pie loaded with mashed potatoes, or a whole plate of spaghetti. Now, we try to make sure that our evening meals are only 1/4 carbs and fill the rest of the plate with lean protein, vegetables or salad. If we're still hungry (and have the calorie allowance to spare), I recommend Muller Rice pots for dessert - they are of course relatively carby, but low in fat and really filling!

Captain_Tightpants

Has he been advised this due to pre-diabetes?

If so you might also want to look into the Glycemic index and make some food choices based on that:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Glycemic_index_and_glycemic_load_for_100_foods.htm

My wife and I are both diabetic. General rules of thumb are...

Brown over white
Whole grain over white/wheat
Bigger grain over smaller grain
Splenda/truvia over Aspartame based sweeteners
The more fibrous the food, the slower the carb release (i.e. 10g of carbs in juice form will spike your glucose much quicker than 10g of carbs in fibrous form like veggies.)

ActiveGuy81

I usually eat pasta after a good weight lifting workout, which is three times a week.

I am a bread lover, but limit that, and eat low cal whole wheat bread.

I try to stay away from rice, but it's part of my Cajun heritage, especially smothered with some sort of gravy. But I definitely stay away from that haha.

I don't focus too much on carbs, I mainly focus on fats and calories.

newlisa2012

Don't forget to consider foods that have a fiber/carb balance. Foods that are higher in carbs but also are high in fiber would have a different carb count, called a net carb count... since the fiber cleans up some the carb count in a food. Take avocados for instance. I was staying away from them since the carb count was so high. Take a 1oz serving of avocado has 3gms of carbs plus a fiber count of 2. You subtract the fiber from the carb and come out with a net carb count of 1 which is great! You can do this with all foods. But your best bet is to stay away from processed foods such as white bread, white potatoes, white rice, and all things sugar related since they are full of carbs. Also read labels!! It seems that foods which are labeled fat free have been stuffed full of sugar and carbs to replace the taste you loose along with the fat. Google Low Carb recipes and you will come up with good websites. There are a ton of them out there. South Beach has great recipes. Good Luck!